The United Nations has warned it will have to suspend life-saving humanitarian aid for half a million refugees and vulnerable people in Cameroon at the end of August unless it receives new emergency funding.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), which provides food assistance to 523,000 people in Cameroon, said it has already been cutting back operations "as resources ran out".
In the Gado Camp in eastern Cameroon, refugees "are now receiving only half of their daily food needs, pushing families to adopt negative coping strategies such as skipping meals, or selling their limited belongings to afford food", the WFP in a statement.
In July, WFP said it had already stopped assistance for 26,000 refugees – many from Nigeria – in the Minawao refugee camp in the north.
"We have reached a critical tipping point," said Gianluca Ferrera, WFP’s country director in Cameroon.
"Without immediate funding, children will go hungry, families will suffer, and lives will be lost," Ferrera added.
The UN body said it needs €57 million to sustain humanitarian assistance through January 2026.
Djaounsede Madjiangar, communications officer and spokesperson for the WFP's regional office for West and Central Africa said there were multiple reasons behind the crisis.
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"Already, as we speak, our studies have shown that there are more than two million people, all categories combined, affected by acute hunger in the country," he told RFI.
"And the reasons are well known: conflicts that prevent people from working the land, climatic shocks, and of course, the rising cost of living, making households almost unable to access food."
Families skipping meals
In the Gado camp, Madjiangar says mothers are skipping meals to feed their children.
"There is one mother who told us that she is forced to deprive herself; she refuses to eat so that her children can eat their share," adding that others are forced to sell the smallest things and the few possessions they have left. How long they will last, we don't know."
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Around 2.6 million people in Cameroon were facing "acute food insecurity" between June and August 2025, according to estimates from Cadre Hamronise, a tool used to identify areas at risk of food insecurity and famine – up six percent compared to a year ago. The country has a population of about 31 million.
The rising numbers of refugees in Cameroon are fleeing multiple crises, including a prolonged conflict with armed groups in the Lake Chad basin, ongoing violence in the country's northwest and southwest, and persistent instability spilling over from neighbouring Central African Republic.
Last year, Cameroon overtook Burkina Faso on the Norwegian Refugee Council's list of the world's most neglected displacement crises.
(with AFP)
